It's going to be a booming Fourth of July in Maine this year, thanks to a new law allowing the sale of fireworks. Unfortunately, this means New Hampshire will have lost a little bit of its business edge.

This state for years has had a lock on the retailing of pyrotechnics, and the tax revenue from businesses in the trade. Massachusetts continues to ban their sale and so did Maine until legislators decided the added sales tax revenue was just too good to pass up. Even if it did mean trusting people not to blow themselves up.

Until now anyone in northern New England with a hankering to celebrate the Fourth of July, New Year's or other occasions with a blast had to stop in here to buy supplies -- then sneak them across state lines. No more.

Now, two stores have opened up about 30 miles up the road in Scarborough, Maine. Many more have opened farther north and west in the Pine Tree State and the gunpowder rush is on.

The two weeks before the Fourth are the make and break it period for the industry, said William Weimer, VP for Phantom Fireworks, based in Youngstown, Ohio.

Phantom has three stores in New Hampshire, including Seabrook.

Of course Weimer applauded Maine's decision and said it's just another state to come to its senses in a long trend of acceptance for his industry. The only states left now that still outlaw fireworks sales are Massachusetts, Vermont, Rhode Island and New York.

"The whole concept of states protecting people from themselves isn't relevant anymore with respect to fireworks," said Weimer, who is on just about every industry committee there is.

No surprise for a man whose firm's motto is "Lighting up backyards across America."

Phantom has 58 retail stores across the country and is one of the firms that has cracked southern Maine, opening up just last week in the Cabela's mall off Maine Turnpike Exit 42. They have high hopes for booming sales and plan to add more Maine stores eventually.

Weimer does not see the move into Maine as cannibalizing sales here. It's an industry that is growing, and most of that's due to self-policing, he said.

In 1994, 117 million pounds of fireworks were sold in the U.S. There were 12,500 injuries.

We all remember our parents' warnings about "blowing your hand off" if you weren't careful with those firecrackers.

That was the year the industry decided to do something about its dangerous image. It created the American Fireworks Standards Laboratory to test products, and started an educational program for manufacturers.

The vast majority of fireworks are still made in China, by the way, where the first explosive device was concocted by a monk 2,000 years ago.

Since then, products are higher quality, injuries have plummeted and sales keep rising. In 2010, 205.9 million pounds of fireworks were sold in the U.S. and only 8,600 injuries occurred.

When it first started testing, the AFSL only found 64 percent of the fireworks shipped here passed safety muster. By 2010, 94 percent were up to snuff.

This is why U.S. legislators are coming to their senses about his industry, Weimer said.

The perception that most pyrotechnic users are teen boys setting off firecrackers and M-80s (essentially a little cardboard barrel of gunpowder) is way outdated, said Weimer.

First of all, M-80s are illegal now. And most buyers in his stores are families, who get an assortment of items for a "backyard event."

Aerial repeaters and mortars are the most popular purchases. Several families living in a cul-de-sac or other neighborhood unit often pool funds and buy a load of fireworks to put on a whiz bang nighttime extravaganza.

Some Maine communities have exercised local control and banned the use of fireworks, even as the state has allowed them. But this Fourth still will see a lot of activity in the night sky in Maine and a lot fewer Mainers sneaking across the border with trunks packed with N.H.-purchased products.

All this is logical to the industry, which doesn't think Maine's gain has to be N.H.'s loss. It argues there's more than enough explosives and tax revenue to go around.